1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer software application and system for creating and distributing digital works of art.
2. Description of the Related Art
The era of digital media is changing the way original content is created, used and distributed. Because of its nature, digital content can be copied any number of times, without its quality being substantially effected. For example, a digital version of a song can easily be extracted from the original CD, copied and compressed on a user's hard disk and/or published on the Internet through readily available peer-to-peer software applications, such as Napster and Kazaa. Using such peer-to-peer software applications, anybody with the appropriate equipment can download and listen to songs, with the same or near-same sound quality as contained on the original CD.
A large part of the media industry's current success is based on the duplication and selling of large quantities of unique works of arts. Millions of copies of a single original version are made and sold. With the proliferation of computing and networking, content creators and owners of digital products like music, movies, software and the like are facing critical piracy problems. Currently, the music and the software industries are being particularly impacted by piracy. Despite the fact that digital products have never been distributed in larger quantities than today, revenues are decreasing. This is at least in part due to an increasing number of products being illegally copied and distributed. In order to protect revenues, the media industry is trying to stop or at least limit illegal copying of their products.
Multiple solutions to arrest piracy problem have already been attempted.
One solution that attempts to solve the piracy problem is to encrypt content. In an encryption system, the content is encrypted before it is distributed to a user. The user can use the music, software, video or other media with a decoder. The decoder verifies the existence of a valid copyright for the product and, if the user is authorized, the content is decrypted and may be accessed.
Although an encryption system offers some protection, this kind of system can easily be bypassed. As an example for music and movies, because a user must hear and/or see the decrypted content, the user can always record the content from the digital or analog stream after the media has been decoded. In the case in which a user captures the analog signal, this is well known in the art as an “analog hole.” After been recorded, the content can be freely distributed in any convenient format. Moreover, since typically a single encryption algorithm is used to encrypt the content, if any one person is able to ‘crack’ the algorithm, he or she can publish the method on the Internet, thus allowing anyone to make use of it.
Another attempted solution to the piracy problem is to embed a digital watermark (for example, a serial number) in the host content. Most commonly, digital watermarking is applied to media such as images, audio signals, and video signals. However, it may also be applied to other types of media, including documents (e.g., through subtle line, word or character shifting), software, multi-dimensional graphics models, and surface textures of objects.
For software, a serial number or a CD key is embedded into the code of a software application.
For music protected by watermark technology, an imperceptible digital watermark signal is embedded in the host content. In fact, robust watermark systems have been developed in order to even be persistent with content quality degradation (compression, analog recording,). However, according to Professor Edward Felton of Princeton University, all the watermarks techniques have been or can be broken. I has been shown that, if some imperceptible signal is introduced into the content, it is possible to disturb or remove the signal without altering the quality of the perceptible content. Professor Felton further indicated that in theory, a good psycho perceptive compression could remove a watermark from a watermarked file without altering the perception of the content.
The solution to the problem of piracy is extends beyond content codification. To continue to ensure that the media industry continues to generate revenue by controlling the duplication and distribution of their products, the media industry must actively seek out solutions to address the problem of piracy. Currently, thanks the proliferation of computer hardware and software in the duplication, processing and communication arenas, the media industry is losing its monopoly on the duplication and distribution of its products.
What is needed is a system and method of creating and distributing works of art that takes advantage of the possibilities of duplication and distribution offered by modern computing and telecommunication, while preserving the rights of the authors